Below are a few of our best takes from August including new research from Digiday+ and a podcast with Mike McAvoy of The Onion. Enjoy and keep an eye out for more this month.
Lucia Moses
co-executive editor, Digiday
How wannabe Instagram influencers use bots to appear popular
Jason Wong founded a clothing store called Fifthtee this year that pledges a fifth of its proceeds to nonprofit Best Friends Animal Society. Wong used a bot service for his business account @fifthtee to automatically like and comment 24/7 on posts that included dog-related hashtags. While the provider didn’t get @fifthtee — which has a little over 6,000 followers — as many followers as expected, it helped the account generate more than 100 likes per post than usual, according to Wong. Read more.
Google reveals sites with ‘failing’ ads, including Forbes, LA Times
Publishers that have fretted about Google’s plans to unleash an ad-blocking version of Chrome in 2018 can now see if their own sites’ ads will be blocked by the tech giant. Read more.
Influencer marketing on Facebook is about to get more expensive
Brands and influencers need to prepare to spend more money on Facebook.
Recently, Facebook started letting social stars turn their paid content into sponsored posts by tagging the brands they are working with and then letting advertisers boost those posts directly without sharing them first. Read more.
Brands are now blacklisting mainstream news sites, including Fox News
Political tensions have reached a point where some brands are perceiving mainstream news outlets as too controversial, leading media buyers to pull ads from those sites.
One campaign manager at a holding group media agency said a major automaker decided last month to stop serving ads in the news category in case the content didn’t align with the brand’s values. Read more.
Facebook moves closer to YouTube and TV with new shows, Watch platform
Facebook wants people to spend more time watching videos on its platform, as they already do on YouTube. Starting Aug. 10, it’s introducing a new video destination called “Watch,” which aims to do exactly that. Read more.
Digiday Research: Is augmented reality a sleeper hit? 🔒
Digiday Research surveyed 172 executives from media and marketing companies to uncover their approaches to AR — and the development of the market. Read more.
Top podcast: The Onion’s Mike McAvoy: ‘There’s no money in news feed video’
Last year, Univision acquired The Onion under its Fusion Media Group division. Since then, The Onion and Gizmodo Media Group combined their sales operations. On a recent Digiday Podcast, The Onion’s president and CEO Mike McAvoy, who also oversees the sales at FMG as the executive vice president, said the consolidation has grown its reach, allowing it to sell more branded content. Read more.
